Where the Girls Aren’t

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There must be some discussion, at least for context, about the well-worn narrative of the boy rebel’s broken heart, as exemplified by the last 50-plus years of blues-based music, that there are songs about loving and losing women; that men writing songs about women is practically the definition of rock ’n’ roll. And as a woman, as a music critic, as someone who lives and dies for music, there is a rift within, a struggle of how much deference you can afford, and how much you are willing to ignore what happens in these songs simply because you like the music.

Can you ignore the lyrical content of the Stones’ “Under My Thumb” because you like the song? Are you willing to? Or the heaping pile of dead or brutalized women that amasses in Big Black’s discography? Is emo exceptional in the scope of the rock canon either in terms of treatment of women or in its continual rubbing salute to its own trouble-boy cliché image? Is there anything that separates Dashboard Confessional’s condemnation of his bed-hopping betrayer and makes it any more egregious than any woman/mother/whore/ex-girlfriend showing up in songs of Jane’s Addiction, Nick Cave, The Animals or Justin Timberlake? Can you forgo judgment woe to women in the recorded catalog of Zeppelin because the first eight bars of “Communication Breakdown” is total fucking godhead? Where do you split? Do you even bother to care, because if you’re going to try and kick against it, you, as my dancing friend says, “have a problem with all of rock history,” and because who, other than a petty, too-serious bitch dismisses Zeppelin?! Do you accept the sexism and phallocentricity of the last few decades of popular music and in your punk rock community as just how it is?

Who do you excuse and why? Do you check your politics at the door and just dance or just rock or just let side A spin out? Can you ignore the marginalization of women’s lives on the records that line your record shelves in hopes that feigned ignorance will bridge the gulf, because it’s either that or purge your collection of everything but free jazz, micro house 12”s and the Mr. Lady Records catalog?

It’s almost too big of a question to ask. I start to ask this of myself, to really start investigating, and stop, realizing full well that if I get an answer I might just have to retire to an adobe hut in the Italian countryside and not take any visitors for a long time. Or turn into the rock critical Andrea Dworkin, and report with resignation that all music made by men propagates the continual oppression and domination of women. Sometimes I feel like every rock song I hear is a sucker punch toward us. And I feel like no one takes that impact seriously, let alone notices it. It is “just” music.

My deepest concerns about the lingering effects of emo is not so much for myself or for my friends—we have refuge in our personal-political platforms and deep-crated record collections—but rather for the teenage girls I see crowding front and center at emo shows. The ones who for whom this is their inaugural introduction to the underground, whose gateway may have been through Weezer or the Vagrant America tour or maybe Dashboard Confessional’s Unplugged. The ones who are seeking music out, who are wanting to stake some claim to punk rock, or an underground avenue, for a way out, a way under, to sate the seemingly unquenchable, nameless need—the same need I know I came to punk rock with. Emo is the province of the young, their foundation is fresh-laid, my concern is for people who have no other previous acquaintance with the underground, save for these bands and their songs.

When I was that age, I too had a hunger for a music that spoke a language I was just starting to decipher, music that affirmed my ninth grade fuck-you values—music that encouraged me to not allow my budding feminist ways to be bludgeoned by the weight of mainstream, patriarchal culture—I was lucky I was met at the door with things like the Bikini Kill demo, Fugazi and the first Kill Rock Stars comp. I was met with polemics and respectful address; I heard my life and concerns in those songs. I was met with girl heroes deep in guitar squall, kicking out the jams under the stage lights. I was being hurtled toward deeper rewards. Records and bands were triggering ideas and inspiration. I acknowledge the importance of all of that because I know I would not be who I am now, doing what I do, 12 years down the line, if I had not had gotten those fundamentals, been presented with those big ideas about what music and, moreover, what life, can be about.

So now I watch these girls at emo shows more than I ever do the band. I watch them sing along, to see what parts they freak out over. I wonder if this does it for them, if seeing these bands, these dudes on stage, resonates and inspires them to want to pick up a guitar or drum sticks. Or if they just see this as something dudes do, since there are no girls, there is no them up there. I wonder if they see themselves as participants, or only as consumers or—if we reference the songs directly—the consumed. I wonder if this is where music will begin and end for them. If they can be radicalized in spite of this. If being denied keys to the clubhouse is enough to spur them into action.

I know that, for me, even as a teenage autodidact who thought her every idea was worthy of expression and an audience, it did not occur to me to start a band until I saw other women in one. It took seeing Babes in Toyland and Bikini Kill to truly throw on the lights, to show me that there was more than one place, one role, for women to occupy, and that our participation was important and vital—it was YOU MATTER writ large.

I don’t want these front row girls to miss that. I don’t want girls leaving clubs denied of encouragement and potential. As lame as punk rock can be, as hollow as all of our self-serving claims ring—that the culture of punk is truly different somehow than that of median society—at its gnarled foundations still exists the possibilities for connection. There is still the possibility for exposure to radical notions, for punk rock to match up to what many kids dream, or hope for punk DIY to mean. But much of that hinges on the continual presence of radicalized women within the leagues, and those women being encouraged—given reasons to stay, to want to belong—rather than diminished by the music which glues the community together.

Us girls deserve more than one song. We deserve more than one pledge of solidarity. We deserve better songs than any boy will ever write about us. ♦

This is crazy true and it makes me kinda mad! It’s not just emo mysic either. Most Top 40 pop that isn’t written by a female seeks to objectify and portray the female being as nothing but a sex object or a trophy to be won and it’s hella annoying

This is EXACTLY what I’ve been trying to decipher in my brain! I’m a huge fan of punk but I’m getting sick of all these lovey dovey songs that are so 2D it hurts. I’m instead listening to riot girl rock and electronic bands with female leads. Even when looking into the past for female punk bands I can never find many. We need more girls in punk!!

This is fantastic, especially the part about ignoring sexism in music (and the perfect sentence “Can you forgo judgment woe to women in the recorded catalog of Zeppelin because the first eight bars of “Communication Breakdown” is total fucking godhead?”) I cannot wait to read the rest of this book.

I am so glad there are people finally talking about this. I find it such a tough situation deciding when I should stop listening to certain artists because of their sexist and discriminatory lyrics, or the artist’s beliefs and actions. What bothers me most is if you even challenge the typical classic rock canon by pointing out certain “classic” bands that are just sexist and largely unoriginal, you get lambasted by others and labeled as either a hipster/contrarian or as someone who knows nothing about music. It’s really frustrating, but I’m just glad I am not alone in this!

I respect this piece so much. Definitely what I needed to hear and definitely what needs to be said to MANY musicians and just people in general.
The part about choosing whether or not to stop listening to a band because of their lyrics – I definitely have been struggling with that. Though this isn’t the same genre that was discussed in the piece, rap/hip-hop is something that I’m a big fan of. And there are male rappers that I listen to because I enjoy the beat and the music, but when I do listen to their lyrics of objectification of women, it makes me sick to be honest. There is some really disgusting stuff out there. Lately I’ve been noticing it more for some reason, so I’ve been trying to find more female fronted punk bands, rock bands, etc. And they’re so hard to find!
I’m so glad this piece was posted; it really gave me that kind of push of confidence to choose not to ignore the lyrics.

God, reading this today dredged up so many memories of my past in “the scene,” memories I assumed I’d long since forgotten.

I was in the midwestern music scene between the years of 2002 and 2006 or so, mostly in the metal and hardcore scenes. So much of what you wrote is true. I look back on those years and I see… Boys in bands. Boys with That Shine about them, doing something that seemed special and reserved only for them, something we couldn’t touch. At the venues in my town, I recall seeing exactly one band with a female member ever play. One. And I remember what some of the local guys said about her–“girls in bands are either sl*ts or d*kes.” Female musicians in my area at that time were like mythical creatures, things you might catch a glimpse of one night but never see again. Like a pegasus with a guitar, kind of.

God, so many memories. So much to be said. Were there other options for us back in 2003? Were we complicit in the objectification of women in the scene by dint of our silence? Did my female peers and I have a choice in the fact that we were perceived mostly as cum-rags, that “girls don’t listen to metal” so we must have been there for the boys and not the bands?

I don’t have any full thoughts. But this was a great piece, and I’m glad Rookie posted it.

Wow, this is amazing! It puts into words something i’ve been feeling about music ( not just punk or emo or rock but music in general) for a very long time and didn’t know exactly why it bothered me so much. I think this is true for all types of media, actually: it’s hard to believe you can do something, that you can be part of something. when you never see yourself represented in those spaces.